Huntington Beach's 9-11 memorial will soon be complete after 5 years of setbacks

HUNTINGTON BEACH – It’s been a five-year journey beset by pitfalls and fraught with setbacks and red tape. Still, throughout the process, the belief and optimism of Dennis Hashin never wavered.

“I am a man of faith,” Hashin said as the H.B. 9-11 Memorial committee concluded a final planning meeting last week. “God answered prayer. He didn’t put me in a position to fail.”

On Patriots Day, the faith and hard work of Hashin and others on the committee will be rewarded when the city unveils a $200,000 monument, featuring two pieces of steel recovered from Ground Zero and two 9 1/2-foot-tall black granite pillars, dedicated to the first responders and victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania that killed 2,996 and brought down the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.

The Sunday ceremony will also include several New York police officers, a county air support flyover, memorial music and posting of a One World Trade Center Flag.

Hashin, a retired Huntington Beach police officer, chief financial officer of the Huntington Beach Police Foundation and the driving force behind the memorial, said it has a three-fold purpose: “To honor the past, the serve the present and secure the future.”

Although failure was not an option, Hashin was certainly tested in the past the five years.

The journey of the 9-11 Memorial in Huntington Beach dates back to 2001 when local police officers traveled to New York to offer financial assistance raised by the Huntington Beach Police Foundation to the families of victims, and also helped work on the Ground Zeno site where the towers fell.

In the course of their trip, the officers befriended Chris Howard, whose father George Howard, a Port Authority police officer, died attempting to rescue victims when the buildings collapsed.

On SepT. 10, 2011, Chris Howard, now a firefighter in New York, presented the Huntington Beach Police Officers Foundation with two pieces of steel from Ground Zero. One is a three-foot length of twisted I-beam, with four bolts. rebar and some concrete still affixed, and the other is a 25-inch-by-15-inch plate.

A 9-11 Memorial Committee was formed, fundraising began and plans were developed to build a memorial with two 19-foot tall towers with a waterfall on the site of the now-defunct fountain in front of City Hall.

However, when the plans were unveiled, Hashin said it was learned that there was soil contamination that would needed to be cleared and the area would have to be brought into Americans with Disabilities Act compliance. Suddenly the bill for the project ballooned by $600,000.

“We had so many trials and tribulations,” said Mayor Jim Katapodis, who joined the committee in its early stages. “There was quite a learning curve, but we just said ‘we can’t give up.’”

The committee continued to raise money through a gala, a golf tournament and taking a tent out to various community events. The group got plenty of positive re-enforcement if not a lot of dollars from its efforts.

“One of the most amazing things was all the people who were personally touched (by 9-11),” said Mary Lou Shattuck, one of the group’s main fundraisers.

Then, on Feb. 12 this year, Hashin had his epiphany.

“I woke up at 3 a.m., and a voice told me, ‘Build with what you’ve got,’” he said.

What he had was about $200,000.

Hashin met with his builder and “we redesigned it in an hour.”

The site for the memorial was moved to a plaza area near the City Council Chambers, which meets ADA compliance requirements.

The memorial includes a wall with the two towers rising out of it, set atop a pentagon on which the phrase “We Will Never Forget,” is emblazoned. There will be lights that shine on the World Trade Center steel and plaques that tell the 9-11 story and list major donors.

Katapodis said the Never Forget motto is particularly important to him.

“It’s one of those things that touches close to the heart,” he said. “I think every adult remembers where they were when the attack happened and we want the kids to know about it, too."

HB City Council unanimously approved 9/11 memorial location

On March 18, 2013, the Huntington Beach City Council unanimously approved locating the 9/11 Memorial at the Huntington Beach Civic Center in area between the HB Police Department and City Hall. This area which currently has a water feature that is inoperable is being completely redesigned and will be named MEMORIAL PLAZA. Cynthia Lee, of Landscapes, has designed the new plaza to be the appropriate setting for the HB 9/11 Memorial, as well as the Stone Lantern from our Sister City in Anjo, Japan, and the International Peace Pole. Memorial Plaza will provide a fitting site for refection and remembrance in addition to enhancing our Civic Center.

Everyone can look forward to more exciting fundraising events, as we continue to generate the funds to complete MEMORIAL PLAZA. Our goal is to have the Plaza Completed and the 9/11 Memorial dedicated on September 11, 2014.

H.B. honors 9/11 with Civic Center memorial

"We will never forget." Words that solicit images of tragedy and loss simultaneously with memories of heroism and hope will soon be displayed as part of a memorial at the Huntington Beach Civic Center to honor those who died on Sept. 11, 2001.

Photo by: Jhoselyn Ramirez

The City Council at its meeting Monday approved the memorial, which will feature a black granite base with five sides to represent the Pentagon, inscriptions to represent the victims on each of the four planes involved in the attack and two 19-foot-tall towers with a cascading water feature to represent the Twin Towers.

The proposed 9/11 Memorial will pay tribute to those who lost their lives in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The focal point of the memorial will be two 4-foot I-beams from the World Trade Center that were given to the city's Police Officers' Association and Firefighters' Association.

The associations were presented with pieces of the steel beams on Sept. 11, 2011, by New York firefighter Chris Howard, whose father, Port Authority Police Department Officer George Howard, died while trying to rescue several people who were trapped in one of the buildings.

april 11th, 2012

Steel artist chosen to design 9/11 memorial in Surf City — not far from where three of the planes might have landed.

Photo by: Jhoselyn Ramirez

Long Beach artist Patrick Vogel never saw the World Trade Center outside of photographs, and he didn't know anyone who died on9/11.

But as far as the Long Beach artist is concerned, he has a connection — a slight, geographical one — to the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.

Before hijackers took over the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center and Pentagon, all three were destined to land in Los Angeles, not far from Huntington Beach, where Vogel has been selected to design a 9/11 memorial over the next year and a half.

"I'm sure there's many Southern Californians who knew someone," said Vogel, who also designed a 9/11 memorial in 2002 for the city of Signal Hill. Read more >